The new compounds were supposed to allow drivers to run slightly longer stints, opening up new strategic options.

But the compound has proved very slow. Rubens Barrichello was told during the course of the second practice session they were around two seconds per lap slower.

Here is the data from the second practice session:

Longest stint comparison

The harder tyre appear to last reasonably well – see Mark Webber’s stint from the beginning of the session below. But they are clearly lacking in performance – though consistent, his lap times are in the 1’29s

Jenson Button couldn’t mnake the tyres last as well as Webber could, and Ferrari didn’t do a run of comparable length

http://www.f1fanatic.co.uk/charts/2011drivercolours.csv

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

Sebastian Vettel

88.65

88.263

88.011

88.77

98.198

88.594

96.581

88.751

101.811

91.953

89.074

89.677

97.553

90.341

Mark Webber

91.866

90.595

90.72

90.762

90.012

89.128

89.397

89.578

89.666

89.716

89.555

89.733

89.551

97.319

89.282

Lewis Hamilton

89.367

89.188

88.32

94.929

89.467

91.954

89.484

89.747

Jenson Button

91.181

90.212

89.973

90.493

92.273

89.425

89.155

90.211

89.473

90.38

94.206

90.339

90.971

93.837

Fernando Alonso

85.707

95.73

85.445

94.133

89.732

86.73

Felipe Massa

88.01

86.836

86.597

90.719

88.557

86.361

Michael Schumacher

90.706

90.789

91.859

90.216

90.347

90.535

91.044

92.647

94.059

93.379

Nico Rosberg

95.001

90.375

90.344

90.62

90.209

96.725

Nick Heidfeld

96.474

90.674

90.365

96.698

89.913

90.325

90.378

90.671

93.014

92.427

91.649

92.321

Vitaly Petrov

92.089

92

91.873

92.848

91.088

91.869

91.954

95.118

91.944

91.576

92.089

92.113

92.007

92.607

91.848

92.133

92.381

92.821

Rubens Barrichello

91.105

90.633

93.443

90.781

91.106

92.113

91.62

91.881

92.104

92.274

92.379

Pastor Maldonado

93.371

92.619

92.581

92.668

92.631

92.594

92.195

92.632

92.845

92.91

92.881

92.925

92.746

92.348

92.764

92.543

93.977

Adrian Sutil

100.593

88.605

87.123

94.479

88.508

Paul di Resta

91.341

92.306

92.22

91.941

91.378

91.654

92.114

92.185

Kamui Kobayashi

90.17

90.92

90.4

92.105

91.082

90.794

91.854

91.308

91.037

91.446

Sergio Perez

92.208

91.732

91.624

92.817

94.543

92.55

92.068

92.339

91.583

Sebastien Buemi

90.814

91.255

91.698

90.939

91.46

91.154

91.013

91.628

Jaime Alguersuari

93.279

92.307

92.457

92.218

92.56

92.283

92.595

92.302

92.499

92.219

94.996

93.139

94.675

93.986

93.53

Heikki Kovalainen

91.433

92.42

90.93

93.073

92.024

91.768

91.564

91.058

90.899

91.111

Jarno Trulli

87.311

94.589

87.189

89.285

89.901

88.144

89.42

89.997

Narain Karthikeyan

95.839

95.08

94.485

95.224

Vitantonio Liuzzi

93.303

93.047

92.976

92.907

93.299

94.506

94.7

93.336

94.887

93.789

94.806

96.85

Timo Glock

91.99

92.487

88.7

107.859

88.062

Jerome dAmbrosio

95.54

95.517

95.868

95.237

96.761

94.909

95.315

95.097

95.672

95.349

Ultimate lap times

Unusually, Sebastian Vettel found himself behind his team mate, although he does have some time in hand

Fernando Alonso was delayed by Nick Heidfeld on his fastest lap, and should be able to go at least two tenths of a second quicker

The ultimate laps of both HRTs were outside 1.7% of Webber’s time by over a second. They will be hoping the fastest cars do not use soft tyres in Q1 or they may not qualify

Car

Driver

Car

Ultimate lap

Gap

Deficit to best

1

2

Mark Webber

Red Bull-Renault

1’22.470

0.000

2

3

Lewis Hamilton

McLaren-Mercedes

1’22.509

0.039

0.000

3

1

Sebastian Vettel

Red Bull-Renault

1’22.695

0.225

0.131

4

4

Jenson Button

McLaren-Mercedes

1’23.188

0.718

0.000

5

5

Fernando Alonso

Ferrari

1’23.356

0.886

0.212

6

8

Nico Rosberg

Mercedes

1’23.586

1.116

0.000

7

7

Michael Schumacher

Mercedes

1’23.662

1.192

0.319

8

16

Kamui Kobayashi

Sauber-Ferrari

1’24.231

1.761

0.059

9

9

Nick Heidfeld

Renault

1’24.243

1.773

0.123

10

6

Felipe Massa

Ferrari

1’24.278

1.808

0.000

11

17

Sergio Perez

Sauber-Ferrari

1’24.417

1.947

0.066

12

10

Vitaly Petrov

Renault

1’24.729

2.259

0.057

13

19

Jaime Alguersuari

Toro Rosso-Ferrari

1’25.007

2.537

0.450

14

11

Rubens Barrichello

Williams-Cosworth

1’25.042

2.572

0.261

15

18

Sebastien Buemi

Toro Rosso-Ferrari

1’25.296

2.826

0.000

16

12

Pastor Maldonado

Williams-Cosworth

1’25.603

3.133

0.000

17

15

Paul di Resta

Force India-Mercedes

1’26.073

3.603

0.000

18

20

Heikki Kovalainen

Lotus-Renault

1’26.417

3.947

0.000

19

14

Adrian Sutil

Force India-Mercedes

1’26.811

4.341

0.312

20

21

Jarno Trulli

Lotus-Renault

1’26.968

4.498

0.221

21

24

Timo Glock

Virgin-Cosworth

1’27.925

5.455

0.137

22

25

Jerome d’Ambrosio

Virgin-Cosworth

1’28.036

5.566

0.000

23

22

Narain Karthikeyan

HRT-Cosworth

1’29.253

6.783

0.216

24

23

Vitantonio Liuzzi

HRT-Cosworth

1’29.469

6.999

0.007

Complete practice times

Both Virgins were well clear of the HRTs. Colin Kolles said: “The time sheet doesn?óÔé¼Ôäót look too good today but I?óÔé¼Ôäóm positive because I know what we have done and I think tomorrow we will see the real performance of the car. We only did long runs and were not running on low levels of fuel.”

Sauber looked promising in both sessions and on the strength of this should be in contention for places in Q3

Despite their updated car Force India are languishing among the Lotuses. an Sutil believes there’s more performance to come, saying: “I ran with all our new aero parts this morning and in the afternoon, but to be honest we haven?óÔé¼Ôäót managed to find the sweet spot yet.”

68 comments on Drivers unhappy with “slow” new hard tyre

1) Drivers make an extra stop because having less time on a slow tyre outweighs the time penalty. Though this is probably unlikely given the length of the pitlane (they missed a trick when they built that new chicane, the entrance could have gone straight past it).
2) We see a lot more people start on the hard tyre to get it out of the way and take the fuel-induced higher degradation on the slowest tyre.

either way, to my mind it won’t be solving the problem – that we need the drivers to have more than one viable strategy option. If everyone is doing the same thing then Pirelli have failed in one of their objectives – to bring back racing strategy.

It concerns me that, thus far, the reason that the races have been great is because the teams are not yet on top of tyre strategy. Once they are, they will all swap at the optimum time etc and we’ll see a return to the more typical processional race. That’s why we need more than one realistic strategy.

With this extra hard tyre we will see 3 different strategies. Many will go for the classic 3 stopper (twice the soft and the hard at the end), Kamui-Perez and Buemi will go for a 2 stopper (twice the hard and a blistering last stint with the fresh soft) and Webber will go for the 4 stopper-Webber (three sets of soft and a hard).

If there will be a safety car (I think that it is about time to see the SC this year!!!) the most exciting stategy will be a 2 stopper.

Pirelli is doing whay they were asked. Sundays race will be a classic. Quali will be Webber-Vettel (not particulary in this order), McLarens, Alonso, Merc, Massa and Saubers. Lotus will for sure have a car in Q2 or maybe both cars. Let’s see…shall we?

Surely the straight line speed deficit for Red Bull is going to be great for anyone who is able to follow them around the track… Even midfield people will be able to overtake! Paul di Resta is about 8 seconds faster down the straights + DRS advantage = quite a lot! Also, they will be less able to utilse the effect of DRS here.

For me. The Pirelli tires sucks.. They caused all kind of setbacks to the cars. Hard tires really gonna make them struggle esp due tot he weather there.. Hope we see a great race and less Pit stops. Catch me on twitter for more F1 discussion @baffah_g

I agree, the tyre(s) are too poor.
Yes they needed to last less durable than the Bridgestones but this is taking the…….
and now a hard tyre that is sooo slow and inconsistent, a recipe for F1 lottery, we could record the Saturday night draw instead and watch that.

If the hard tyres are really 1.5 – 2 seconds a lap slower it might mean everyone from the top teams will have to use softs in q1, not just ferrari. Theres no way anyone will be able to get through q2 on hards, not even vettel.

There my also be a risk that whoever wins the race will simply be the driver from the top 4 teams that spends the least amount of laps on superhard (super slow) tyres in the race.

How long can teams keep the soft tyres working? That’ll probably be the biggest factor on race day. If cars can’t go more than 75% of race distance on 3 sets of soft tyres it will be interesting to see when and how teams use the “superhard” tyres.

WerenÂ´t the drivers asked in the last 2 races after some friday practice with this new hard tyre what their thinking was about his behavier??
So why are they complaining now?? IsnÂ´t the same for everybody??
This tyre will mess the strategy not only in the race but also in qualifying which will be good.

ISn’t it enough with the silly DRS to spoil true races? I mean, this kind of lucky raffle about tyre strategy is going nowhere. If it was making a point, not only RB but other teams would be winning races. It’s messing the middle-teams battle. I personally don’t like the way Piralli is doing its job (well, they ususally say they are just asked to do so). Tyre degradation is one of this day going to make a big-shame headline if there comes an accident for some tyres blowing unexpectedly, or for a pilot who tries to stay longer in soft tyres spinning on marbles and crashing. Just the same as worrying as Barrichello warning about DRS in Monaco. Scary. I hope to be wrong about this for the rest of the year. We really miss Senna, FIA shouldn’t risk pilots more than what they already do. F1 safety has improved a lot, I know, but don’t push the limits.

Whinge, whinge, whinge. These are the rules and they’ve made the races very entertaining. A harder tyre should be slower than a softer one, that has almost always been the case. By using a hard tyre you are sacrificing some grip for more durability. If they were the same pace everybody would just use the hards and racing would be boring and processional again. You can’t have it all! Sacrifices have ot be made to get what you want!

Without the tyre management required this year Red Bull would have easily won every race and then you’d all be whinging that F1 is boring. At least we get some action and strategy cock-ups now as we saw in china which allowed Lewis to win.

You’re completely missing the point. The point of the new hard tyre was to improve durability, but it’s even slower than the older-spec version so you lose even more time anyway. The hard tyre is supposed to act as the prime, instead it’s more of a compromised option tyre than the option tyres themselves. That is not what Pirelli intended and the drivers are acknowledging that.

When will people wake up, there is NO tyre management. For each car they last X laps. It is nothing to do with driver skill or looking after them. Its luck and luck in the outcome of the design of the car. Tyre management mean the different between pitting one or two laps earlier which is totally discounted by ‘luck’ in what traffic you come out in or all sorts of other factors. Tyre management, piff!

By the way,
I’m not saying the tyre are totally rubbish. They just need to be consistent between sets and the softs need to be faster than the hards with the slower hards and lasting longer than they do. It’s no good if they last the same +/- 2 – 4 laps.

I’m not so sure, Vettel has clean air (the same as a car naturally better on its tyres) Button is better on his tyres if you look at the number of stops, but it doesn’t help him, he’s ran less stops but shouldn’t of, its been a mistake as he himself and Whitmarsh admitted, that’s why I say tyre management is a myth. Buemi same. No evidence that tyre management is helping any of those drivers.

However after reading and looking at some data the new hard doesn’t look as bad as the drivers are saying and might be a step in the right direction from the previous hard tyre. We’ll see.

Disagree with Button. Malaysia was more down to tyre strategy in qualifying, and Turkey Hamilton was able to do a three-stop, just that he might as well have pitted anyway as a precaution like Vettel did.

Thinking about it more, I still stand by the managing tyre myth.
The driver examples Keith gives provides more evidence, it does not disprove it.
Both Button and Vettel have lost places due to less pit-stops, for Vettel it cost him a win. Doing less pit-stops was not tyre management but a strategic mistake

Agree, the overtaking means nothing when there is little or no skill.
I’d much rather have last session.
Its a bit like changing the rules in football so every game you get more goals i.e scores like 21 – 12, doesn’t make the game any better a 2 – 1 game (or even a 1 -0) would be just as good without the meaningless goals.
For me overtaking was only a small part of the overall of the viewing enjoyment, throwing the cars into the cars and lock ups in the braking zones, the pure speed, the racing was just as exciting.